Bloody River Blues

inside, smelling of onions and cigarette smoke and mold, was one large room, filled with broken tables and chipped chairs. The club seemed locked in a time warp dating to the year it had opened—1954.
    This afternoon Crimmins was sitting at a table with Joshua, his driver and security chief. They drank tea that had been brewed in a cheap samovar. There were four or five other men in the club who would have liked to sit with Crimmins but who tended not to when Joshua was with him. The bodyguard’s presence made them uncomfortable. They, of course, knew all about Crimmins. They read the Post-Dispatch as well as the Ukrainian Daily News, which reported, respectively, on his criminal activities and on his social, ethnic, and professional endeavors. The latter did notinterest them in the least; any fool can give away money. But a successful criminal is hot stuff. So they sat around him, basking in his dangerous presence. Crimmins gave them status. John Gotti had gone to his social club in Little Italy in New York; Peter Crimmins went here. They believed the nearby streets were safer because of him.
    Crimmins and Joshua had been drinking tea for ten minutes when a broad-shouldered man wearing a blue denim jacket and jeans entered. His shirt was dirty. He was squat, though he moved with a certain elegance. Crimmins did not approve of the common clothes, but this sort of man might be a foreman or carpenter in addition to being what Crimmins was now hiring him for.
    Joshua said, “Tom Stettle. Mr. Crimmins.”
    “How do you do, sir.” Stettle’s eyes swung one way then the other, settling on Crimmins’s mole of an eye for a moment.
    “Stettle, is it?”
    “Yeah,” the voice said. “Yessir.”
    “Sit down.”
    He did. The Samsonite folding chair creaked under his weight. Crimmins let the silence run up for a moment. Rather than feeling uncomfortable, Stettle grew more at ease and gazed back at Crimmins pleasantly.
    Finally Crimmins said, “Joshua talked to you?”
    “Yessir.”
    This was not the safest way, meeting Stettle face-to-face. The identification issue later, if it all went sour, but Crimmins liked to see the people who worked for him. You could have a better conversation with someonewhen you knew what he looked like. You could pick up on his mannerisms, match them to his words. That helped you decide if he was telling the truth, if he was dependable, how much he could be bought for.
    “You’ve been following him? Pellam?”
    Stettle nodded.
    “The police have been, too, I know. Have you seen anyone else? Anyone from Peterson’s office?”
    “Some. Off and on. It’s funny. It’s like, hey, we got the budget for it today but not tomorrow. They’re not there more than they’re there.”
    Crimmins had an urge to remind the man that he was making fifteen thousand dollars for this job. But he said nothing. Another of his basic rules, like providing for the family, was: Don’t jerk leashes until you need to.
    “Stick with him.”
    “This being the country, pretty much, it’s harder, you know what I’m saying? In the city, with a lot of people around, there are more ways to get away, like cabs and subways. You can set up a hit a lot faster.” The measured and respectful tone of Stettle’s reply made Crimmins feel comfortable. He was pleased that Stettle was giving a frank appraisal. Crimmins himself would have guessed it was easier to do this sort of thing in the country.
    “All right. Keep at it. Joshua knows where to get in touch with you?”
    Both men nodded.
    “Thanks for stopping by. You want some tea? Some pastry?”
    “No, sir.”
    Stettle left the club, glancing around him with studious eyes. Crimmins supposed he was surveying the shoddy paneling job and thinking he could do better.
    Crimmins said to Joshua, “Is he good with it?”
    “With what?”
    Crimmins forgot that some people did not think as quickly as he did. “A gun.”
    “That’s not really the question. All’s I know is he’s got one and he doesn’t mind using it. Maddox’s got a mandatory sentencing thing and a lot of guys have a problem with that. He doesn’t.”
    Crimmins rose and poured both Joshua and himself two more glasses of tea.

Chapter 11
    “S’IL VOUS PLAÎT , est-ce que vous avez un  . . . guest, Monsieur Weller? ”
    The crackling of the eight thousand miles of cables and airwaves filled the phone.
    “Non, monsieur.”
    “Well, est-ce qu’il a une réservation? ”
    The crash behind Pellam